The Republican Mother in Post-Transition Novels of Historical Memory

Abstract

This chapter considers the place of the silenced Republican mother in Spanish cultural memory of the civil war and Francoist dictatorship today. Beginning with a brief historical background of the visions and discourses of motherhood in Spanish Civil War and postwar Spain, the chapter examines the representation of Republican mothers in postwar Spain as recorded in testimony and fictional representations about the recovery of historical memory. Fictional novels of the post-Transition period highlight women's experience of the civil war and postwar clandestine resistance that has not received the critical attention it deserves. Hortensia, the sole representation of a truly combative mother, does not survive to continue her motherhood. Accordingly, there is still space for the representation of a combative maternal narrative of Republican women's experience of the Spanish Civil War and dictatorship in post-Transition memorial fiction. Keywords: Francoist dictatorship; Hortensia; post-Transition memorial fiction; postwar Spain; Republican mother; Spanish Civil War; Spanish cultural memory